The intriguing DC Comics super-villain Mad Hatter (real name: Jervis Tetch) is a madman who borrows his crime-alias from the iconic Lewis Carroll character (of the same name - 'Mad Hatter') who creates maddening logic-jokes and inane tea-parties meant to create strange perceptions of etiquette and civics.

The Mad Hatter plagues Gotham City, compelling the valiant DC Comics superhero Batman (a masked vigilante who tackles the criminally-insane) to pursue him to end insanity in his beloved urban space. The Mad Hatter, like the Carroll character who's oddly inspired the maniac, designs strange labyrinths and mind-games for Batman so he can 'avenge' society for the loss of his haunting 'illusory muse-girl' named Alice (whom we're not entirely sure is real or not!).

Traditionally, Mad Hatter (DC Comics) has been portrayed as a colorful and wily madman who is basically a criminally-insane terrorist. He's not prone to acts of outlandish courage or bizarre forms of politics, merely other-worldly kinds of crime and anarchy.

However, since Mad Hatter (DC Comics) is such an iconically anti-social 'villain' (in terms of civics/sanity), we might consider if such a character is prone for a more horror-oriented comics-storytelling presentation, perhaps mountable in a live-action alternative-stylized Batman (DC Comics) film-adaptation. Such a film might've been made earlier, perhaps with Guy Pearce (Ravenous) portraying Batman and Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight) portraying the eerie Mad Hatter.

What, for example, would you make of the following short-story Batman/Hatter concept inspiring a hypothetical film screenplay? Since we're making so many comic book adapted films now, we might consider how comics-stories/books/fiction can be translated in more unusual ways...

====

"As I looked out into the Gotham skyline from my loft-window, I wondered if being Bruce Wayne, the city's socialite-businessman and inheritor of Wayne Industries, was worth the sweat. Did I prefer being the city's secret/masked night-time vigilante 'Batman' in some way? I modeled my Batman-persona after a fictional bat-creature humanoid-mammal who survives under extraordinary circumstances, which is the sort of unusual imagination required for enduring the kinds of criminally-insane bad-guys Gotham City has produced. Do I prefer being Bruce Wayne or do I prefer being Batman?"
-Bruce Wayne diary entry [Summer 2018]

"I despise Batman. I hate everything he stands for in this 'capitalist-majesty' city called Gotham. I was once a respected neurologist in the new sciences-division of Wayne Industries until the 'handsome' Bruce Wayne personally ordered I be dismissed from my position when he found out I was designing a new series of electronic mind-stimulation cards which could be place in specially-designed hats kids would wear while watching custom-made comic book crime-fighting story-programs designed to indulge their fantasies. Wayne thought my mind-trick cards were too controversial and that parents would question whether or not their kids should 'stimulate' their minds artificially. I was fired...here I am two years later. No longer Dr. Jervis Tetch but rather the terrorist and ingenious madman known as Mad Hatter."
-Hatter diary entry [Summer 2018]

Of course, the Mad Hatter was not an ingenious philosopher or even a tragic scientist but rather a disgruntled mad scientist who simply became a maniac. Bruce Wayne (Batman) knew this, but fortunately no one knew Wayne was actually Batman, which was good, since the Hatter just might try to destroy Wayne Industries (the center of Gotham commerce!) just to spite Batman! Batman pursued Mad Hatter every chance he got, and the Hatter evaded Batman with all his resources. The Hatter wore distinctive green and purple giant tea-party hats and ornate tuxedos and drove around in a custom-made Mercedes with tinted windows. Hatter spray-painted his car in different colors every now and then so he couldn't be trailed. He also lived in an underground lair beneath an abandoned warehouse.

Batman was genuinely afraid of the Hatter (Jervis Tetch). Something about the Hatter's willingness to create unfiltered forms of violence/horror reminded Bruce Wayne of his own childhood demons regarding the scope/limits of crime-fighting. After all, Bruce/Batman often asked questions like, "How much muscle/violence should crime-fighters/cops exercise?" In other words, the eerie Hatter reminded Batman of the ugliness of violence and made the crime-fighting masked vigilante wonder about the challenges of policework itself. This unnerved Batman, which is why he kept his perspectives on the Hatter mostly private --- material for his hidden diary. Batman had already apprehended a host of criminally-insane evildoers in Gotham such as Scarecrow (a masked bandit), Poison Ivy (an eco-terrorist), and Penguin (a crime-syndicate ghoul). However, Hatter was the worst (by far).

HATTER: I can't believe you caught me...
BATMAN: I tracked you to that warehouse!
HATTER: Yes, my lair was underground; impressive.
BATMAN: You know how I caught you, Jervis?
HATTER: You imagined what you'd do if you were me!
BATMAN: Precisely; only I didn't have to conceive of your evils.
HATTER: No one can, Batman, for I am the only prince of darkness.
BATMAN: You gloat about your 'derring-do,' but you're simply insane.
HATTER: Haul me off to Arkham Asylum then!
BATMAN: I will; that's the premiere center for the criminally-insane.
HATTER: I doubt Arkham will rid my mind of my dark imagination!
BATMAN: Do you believe your kind of anti-social crime is imagination?
HATTER: Why not? There are many 'brands' of crime; I'm simply unique.
BATMAN: You need serious self-evaluation time, Jervis; think of your evil.
HATTER: Evil?
BATMAN: Yes, Hatter, evil; you murdered numerous cops with hammers!
HATTER: Well, yes, I did bash their meaningless skulls in with my hammers.
BATMAN: Don't you worry about the fate of your own soul/mind?
HATTER: My mind is its own treasure; I redesigned my mind-trick cards.
BATMAN: Yes, your 'mind-trick cards' which Wayne rejected!
HATTER: I used those mind-trick cards to lure cops to my warehouse here.
BATMAN: And then you mercilessly beat their heads in with your hammers.
HATTER: That's right; my message is clear --- anarchy is poetry.
BATMAN: You want to punish Gotham for what happened to you...
HATTER: Why was I fired? My mind-trick cards were absolute genius.
BATMAN: Arkham will treat your devastated sense of ethics, Tetch...
HATTER: Doctors will remember my reign of blood and think of art.
BATMAN: Hopefully the 'real' Jervis will be considered a 'tragic hysteric.'
HATTER: I've drank human blood...I'm dangerously sublime.

I really liked how that concept-pitch worked out, so to expand, I'm offering another plot-synopsis/pitch in this Chapter 2 of the adventures of the Mad Hatter (DC Comics).

So in this story-concept, the Mad Hatter escapes from Arkham and teams up with two other ghouls of Gotham (crossover characters borrowed from Marvel Comics actually), Lilandra (a terrorist) and Gray Goblin (a mayhem specialist). Their photos/portraits are included below as a jpg file.

While maintaining the comics-stylized approach to storytelling, I'm continuing to explore more horror-storytelling oriented dimensions of Mad Hatter stories in the hope that we can continue to entertain why Mad Hatter (and Batman) are ripe for all kinds of as-of-yet unexplored horror stories and perhaps even adapted horror-comics themed films (not unlike Spawn perhaps).

What do you think?

====

Mad Hatter escaped from Arkham and was loose in Gotham City once again. Batman was truly worried and feeling very frustrated. Batman grabbed his copy of the Gazette three days after Hatter escaped from Arkham and noticed the headline, "Hatter Bombs Parking Lot!" Batman knew that Hatter was up to no good and had refused his path to restoration in favor of throwing away whatever chance at prayer he had left to basically finish his life as a complete criminal.

Batman truly felt sorry for Jervis, recognizing that the madman's very bizarre fascination with punishing Gotham cops with hammers was somehow an expression of the Hatter's complete inability to trust the system and believe in its medical capacities. Batman was therefore worried that Hatter would now recruit more fiendish evil-doers, criminally-insane like him of course, and then persuade them to commit acts of great troubling anarchy. Batman was shrewd in his theories, for the Hatter did indeed recruit two eccentrics to serve as his accomplices.

HATTER: I want you to kidnap three Gotham cops.
LILANDRA: Males?
GOBLIN: We'll do it...

HATTER: Bring the cops to my lair here...
LILANDRA: Alright; what's the mission?
GOBLIN: Is this some kind of press stunt, Hatter?

HATTER: We'll take photos of them with nose-bleeds.
LILANDRA: And send these photos to the mayor!
GOBLIN: Genius...

HATTER: I knew you'd understand.
LILANDRA: Well, I suppose we can appreciate your 'theme.'
GOBLIN: You want people to think, "Cops are full of frailty."

HATTER: Precisely; a cop with a nose-bleed reminds us of frailty.
LILANDRA: Sure; a headache is simple, but a nose-bleed is frailty!
GOBLIN: The photos will drive the mayor into a frenzy...

Lilandra and Goblin did just what Hatter/Jervis instructed. They kidnapped three Gotham cops, all males, and brought them to his lair gagged and tied. When Hatter saw the weeping and confused cops, he assured them they'd make it out alive and merely were obligated to serve as 'news models.' He then put some sharp inhalant into their noses and ordered them to inhale, and when they did, their noses began to bleed. Lilandra took photos of the three cops with the nose-bleeds.

BATMAN: "It is my contention that Hatter, Lilandra, and Goblin form what can be best described as a 'trio of terror.' As your trusted masked crime-fighter, I will do everything in my power to bring all three ghouls into Arkham Asylum where they will be cared for by America's best psychiatrists/doctors. It's unfortunate Jervis/Hatter escaped from Arkham, but I'll make sure that this 'trio of terror' is treated very appropriately. It's unthinkable that Hatter, a man who's exterminated cops by bludgeoning them, is now working with two sociopaths (Lilandra and Goblin) who're willing to do his bidding and mail photos of cops with nose-bleeds to a worried mayor. I'm certain that this 'trio of terror' is now planning to decapitate cops in Gotham (and maybe elsewhere) and deliver their heads on the footsteps of a church or something!). I promise this great city that this 'trio of terror' will be cradled by the gills of justice...and all blood-loss will end."